Indian jatis have usually been endogamous for over a thousand years. We’re talking genetic differences as large or larger than between Ashkenazim and Poles here. Less than one in-marriage per generation.
> Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations
> The origins and affinities of the ∼1 billion people living on the subcontinent of India have long been contested. This is owing, in part, to the many different waves of immigrants that have influenced the genetic structure of India. In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank. To explore the impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we compared mtDNA (400 bp of hypervariable region 1 and 14 restriction site polymorphisms) and Y-chromosome (20 biallelic polymorphisms and 5 short tandem repeats) variation in ∼265 males from eight castes of different rank to ∼750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians. For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank. Nevertheless, the mitochondrial genome and the Y chromosome each represents only a single haploid locus and is more susceptible to large stochastic variation, bottlenecks, and selective sweeps. Thus, to increase the power of our analysis, we assayed 40 independent, biparentally inherited autosomal loci (1 LINE-1 and 39 Alu elements) in all of the caste and continental populations (∼600 individuals). Analysis of these data demonstrated that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians, and the upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are the lower castes. Collectively, all five datasets show a trend toward upper castes being more similar to Europeans, whereas lower castes are more similar to Asians. We conclude that Indian castes are most likely to be of proto-Asian origin with West Eurasian admixture resulting in rank-related and sex-specific differences in the genetic affinities of castes to Asians and Europeans.
If caste is beyond religion in India, then why did Ambedkar leave Hinduism and urge all of his followers to do so.
Can you tell me one other religion which has the concept of caste in religious scriptures?
That's not exclusive to Christianity. Universal equality is a basic tenet of Hinduism (including non violence towards all living things not just humans). I will not get into a debate of what is "Hinduism". I also don't disagree that some people do face a lot of discrimination. Sadly, the old generation needs to die off for this stuff to be behind us.
They may not be having caste-based discrimination but they do have other forms of discrimination. That's why you have terms like heathens, heretics and kafirs.
While I agree that Hindus have more of this caste-based discrimination, a simple search shows that it's not exactly uncommon in other religions in India.
https://scroll.in/article/876000/is-the-caste-system-deep-ro...
https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-...
https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2019/sep/01/c...
I'll reiterate, it's very rare in other religions and uncommon. Mostly remnants of Hinduism. But ask an average muslim or a christian his caste and he will say that he doesn't have one.
Aren't there Shia/Sunni divisions and even centuries long wars?
Not exactly castes, but probably worse.
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2017/08/sunni...
Also see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian...
> But ask an average muslim or a christian his caste and he will say that he doesn't have one.
Almost 80% population of India is Hindu. It's obvious that relatively less number of muslims and even less number of christians are gonna talk about caste.
So now anecdotes spilling vitriol are allowed?
Replace Hindus/Muslims and Casteism/Terrorism and would you allow this if someone claims they are Muslim.
> To me it's primarily a report of the commenter's experience as a dalit, and a very interesting report actually.
The generalization without evidence is the problem. We should not give into false generalizations just because they are "interesting." This is the kind of thing over time leads to things like "All Xs are bad."
My point is that generalizations (false, true) of groups tend to incite emotion that end up dragging things down.
Appreciate the response here and your moderation.
Hindus believe that humans are like dogs and they have a breed. So a person who is born in a higher caste is of a better breed than a person born in a lower caste. Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. The moment an upper caste person realizes that you are a lower caste, you will be made fun of and ridiculed. Caste is also tied to your last name, so when a Hindu person says his full name he is telling his First name and his Caste. Which is why brahmins will be the first ones in a group to say their full name, while dalits will only meekly say their first name. The entire religion and caste system was built to make people feel shameful of their last name. In fact, some last names of lower castes are commonly used as abuses by upper caste.
It is the worst form of discrimination known to man and it's horrible how hindu society openly supports and promotes it. While slavery lasted only for a couple of hundred years, caste system has been going on for millennia. Dalit atrocities are common in India even today and everyday 10s of lower castes dalits are raped, killed , tortured and humiliated just because they were born a lower caste Hindu. Upper caste hindu managers openly look down on lower caste hindus, even in the US , and will discriminate against them. Caste shame is also inbuilt in a lot of Dalit hindus and they themselves feel embarrassed while even saying their full name.
One of the best things I did after coming to this country was to convert to christianity and a few of my dalit hindu friends have done too. Upper caste hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as their equal, but they would still regard a hindu dalit as inferior. Hinduism has a huge conversion problem even in India, and it is the fastest shrinking religion in the world.